Monday, July 24, 2006

Go Badgers and beware killer elephants

Courtesy of Dave Heller's blog at the Journal-Sentinel, we've got linkage: the SportsNetwork's ranking of Big Ten teams to win the BCS Championship compared to how reasonable a bet those teams really are. They like Michigan at 14-1, then Iowa at 50-1, and in third place they have Ohio State at 11-2. The Badgers are given 100-1 odds, and SportsNetwork thinks even that's a bad bet:

Wisconsin's offense will struggle with only three returning starters, but its defense will show tons of improvement, especially on the line where they allowed 4.6 yards per rush. The Badgers have the easiest Big Ten schedule, as they face four of the worst teams in the conference, with three of those games coming at home. Still, 100-1 is way too low as they could even lose at home in week three to San Diego State.

About that final sentence: WTF?!? A possible loss to San Diego State? At Camp Randall? I've already been labeled "cynical" by some bloggers, but apparently the ol' SportsNetwork will consider me a downright homer when I say that there is NO WAY the Badgers lose that game.

On to the bullet points:

CSTV has tagged the UW-Penn State game the second biggest "game to watch" during Week 10 of the college football season. As soon as the sophomore slumps start to set in at West Virginia, this game should become number one. Plus, no game that includes Louisville should ever be given Game of the Week Status. Puh-leez.

When you have an article about a football team and declare that the Sum is Greater than the Parts in the headline, the next season is sure to be full of surprises. "Wow, another blowout loss! But the sum of this team is so, so much greater than the parts! How can this be?" Enjoy the Packers' season, Mr. Wilde.

Finally, although it's upsetting that the Henry Vilas Zoo no longer has an elephant exhibit, it's probably better that they jettisoned the angry "on the spot" human killer elephant when they did. To be specific, before it got angry and killed a human on the spot.